If it's Popular it Must be Good = Popular Dreck Rules the Charts!

This is interesting. About the music industry and how popularity breeds popularity.  It's another one of those circular conundrums that explains a lot... maybe people don't really trust themselves to know what is good or bad, maybe people figure if something is popular it must be "good." That same fatal logic leads to all that popular dreck in pop culture! Revenge of the Lemmings!

"It turns out that just the appearance that something was popular drove more people to download the song. Rather than a pure meritocracy where the best songs rise to the top, music seems to have strange effects in which popularity breeds greater popularity."

Of course, some of us take the alternative view: if it's popular, it must be "bad." But then there are a few amazing exceptions like The Beatles! Popular and "good." But maybe they are just the most famous exception that proves the rule?

And is it all a matter of good luck and good fortune? Maybe!